Tero, you are a brainy sort of guy, so I wondered whether you could comment on this.
An article in the New Zealand Herald reports that the US National Cancer Institute collected details of 782 brain-tumour patients admitted to US hospitals between 1994 and 1998. They compared them with a control group of 799 people with normal [sic] brains. Actually, they didn't use the word 'normal', I just wanted to write [sic] after normal in relation to brains.
The results show that people who used cellphones for an hour or more a day or regularly for five or more years were no more at risk of brain tumours than non-users.
There was no disproportionate incidence of brain tumours on the side of the brain where they used the cellphones.
My argument is that the microwaves, combined with almost ionizing radiation does the trick and tips the balance to cause DNA damage which would not otherwise occur in those few instances where 'almost' ionizing conditions exist. The range of frequencies and conditions to 'almost' ionize would be small, and the energy added by 2GHz is very small [1000th that of ionizing energy levels] so we'd be looking for a needle in a haystack.
My question is, with a haystack of 782, how many needles would we find? My guess is none, one or two with a standard deviation, probability and statistically significant regression analysis adjusted for confounding variables such as cigarette smoking, vitamin C, E, A intake, fish oil consumption, flying in 747s and listening to Swedish Heavy Metal in brain formation years.
All they have shown is that the number of tumours caused is fewer than 5 or maybe 10. If there was an effect, what number would you think they would be able to detect with such a study?
Mqurice
PS: Incidentally, I have been counting the side of their head that people hold mobile phones and it's about 75% on the right side in Auckland. I am sure I can conclude something from that. For example, right-handed people are 90% of the population and while they are holding a phone, they can't do something else. So I conclude right-siders are lazy people who avoid multi-tasking. Of, they have a great corpus callosum to carry the signals from their right ear to their left hemisphere where I suppose their listening processing is done. Or maybe something else. Being a mobile leftie, I am interested in why the difference [me being also right-handed]. |
